Have you watched yet? Because…wow. Jamie Lee Curtis is READY to snatch her Oscars nomination. But before I get ahead of myself, one can’t ignore the delay announcement at the teaser’s end. The powers that be at Universal Pictures have officially moved this second installment over to October 2021. That means it will be another year before we can witness JLC’s intense performance as Laurie Strode and her pained bellows of LET IT BURN!!
The decision isn’t surprising as with other shutdowns to stop the spread of COVID-19, movie theaters closed up and have been left in limbo. With that aside, we do finally have a teaser trailer! At thirty seconds, it doesn’t overstay its welcome yet it still builds the exhilaration of what’s to come. And perhaps the strongest asset Halloween Kills has going for it, is inviting back a surge of legacy characters. Many of whom haven’t been seen since the original series dried up in the early 2000’s. And this changes the game big time.
Halloween (2018) wanted to hit two birds with one stone. It placed emphasis on the generational trauma of the Strode women, while also indulging in standard slasher film tropes by killing off horny teenagers. If there was any criticism I had, it was the latter felt too forced in. To me, it was at its most compelling when focused on Laurie’s strained relationship to her family, as well as how determined she had become to end Michael Myers that she built her own damn house into a weapon. With this upcoming entry, it looks we might be getting that and more.
Now, I love the slasher genre but one can only watch so many formulaic plots before repetition fatigue sets in. Simply put, enough of teenagers! Let’s see how adults attempt to fight back and in this case, the very ones who were involved on that Halloween night back in 1978. Halloween Kills will be placing front and center a cast largely made up of characters over the age of forty. Some might be as visibly scarred as Laurie. Others might have worked hard to heal after all these years. And now they all will have to face the boogeyman again. Beyond pushing the narrative forward, when I think of the performances alone, it already has me excited.
Now it’s just a waiting game. Halloween Kills will of course supply carnage but it will also become bigger than Laurie’s story by granting additional Haddonfield survivors the possibility of revenge…if they don’t die trying.
